Good morning! We’ve officially dropped three new podcasts on our YouTube channel, and here are just a couple of thoughts I’ve had about the process. I mentioned how uncomfortable it made me several times in some of our early episodes, but I’ve since stopped. There was the whole, “How can I concentrate if I’m too busy fixating on every one of my physical imperfections?” part, obviously. And the other part — how do you make a show that people like to watch? 

From what I’ve found so far, well, the point is you don’t make it watchable in the way you would a typical television talk show. The idea is to make a show that people want to listen to, but now there is a visual element attached to it if — big IF — anyone prefers to listen to their favorite podcasts by watching them on YouTube. 

The part I love most is interviewing guests in person. We’ve done a couple through Zoom, but the majority of them will be me sitting at a table talking to the person at the other side of the table. There’s a learning curve here, and this has made me appreciate how much skill it takes to get these things to land properly. This is especially true when I’m sitting down with people I don’t know particularly well. But all this is to say — I love doing this. I love the show, and over time I think you’ll grow to love it as well. 

I don’t know if podcasts are having their Buggles moment right now, but I’m attempting to make this transition with as open a mind as possible, because I suspect this will be how many of these shows are produced from now on. 

One note for old TSB podcasts listeners: Yes, the theme song has changed. Swamp Dogg’s “Everything You’ll Ever Need” was in a sort of murky licensing area and was getting flagged on YouTube. We have the paperwork to show it’s legit, but in order to get everything launched on time, we backed off and decided to move on. I still wanted Swamp Dogg as part of the show, since he’s been such a huge influence on my creative life and on the show itself. I thought the easiest way to work around this was for me to write an original song. I had about a week, but I cobbled together a melody on the guitar, wrote some lyrics, then sent a voice memo over to Moog Star and Swamp to do their version. We went back and forth a few times with some of my production cues, ranging from “Can you put horns here?” to “We need this to sound like Swamp is in a grand ballroom by himself, naked, playing this on a piano.” 

And that’s how the theme song came to be, which I just called “All the Things” in my head since that’s a recurring qualification in our meetings each week.  

Thanks for sticking around. If you want to help the show, you know the drill. Like. Subscribe. All the Things. 

New episode with Cord Jefferson (our first three-time guest) drops Wednesday. And the closest thing we’ll have to a “very special episode” with Jerry O’Connell is the following week.

Episode 1
Jenn Sterger: I Was the Villain. Then She Saved My Dog

“I saw it as a chance to confront something in my past that still had a hold on me. I had so many unanswered questions — you were like this open tab on my computer screen that I could not close. I really wanted to understand why you did what you did.”

Episode 2
Joe Buck: The Power of Laughing at Yourself

“At no point — and this isn’t me being humble, this is me being honest — do I sit back and go, ‘Ah boy, I finally did it. I’ve made it.’ I have never felt that way. I’ve never felt satisfied, I’ve never felt like I was better than anybody else. I feel like I’m worse than everybody else.”

Episode 3
Amanda de Cadenet on Trauma and the Addict's Mindset

“What I think people don’t understand is that the reason you said in your intro, we’re expanding the concept of recovery, is that addiction is a mindset. It’s to do with our thinking. It’s not to do with the substance. So we have an ailment with the way we think, the way we see the world, whether we’re using sex, drugs, alcohol, work, fame, attention, validation, shopping.”

If you don't feel comfortable calling yourself an “alcoholic,” that’s fine. If you have issues with sex, food, drugs, codependency, love, loneliness, and/or depression, come on in. Newcomers are especially welcome.

Format: crosstalk, topic meeting

We’re there for an hour, sometimes more. We'd love to have you.

Meeting ID: 874 2568 6609
Password To ZOOM: nickfoles

Need more info?: [email protected]